Monday 28 March 2016

The gate to....



There really is a story behind this one!

First of all, we did see an abandoned gate like this during a walk through Vila Nova de Gaia, in Portugal. At that moment I asked my husband to take a picture for me, if only to remember the scene but I never used that picture as a reference. 
The memory of that gate remained and the plan to use the scene for a painting also kept lingering on the background of my to-do list.

A few days ago my daughter was talking to me and used the word 'gates' to explain something and all of a sudden I saw the picture I wanted to paint! Of course I made my apologies for not listening very well and got my sketchbook out and started composing my painting. 

When I started doing that, I planned a charcoal drawing but as I continued sketching it 'became' a watercolour and while thinking over which colour scheme would be the best for this painting I decided on the Twilight colours.
I am still not as comfortable with that set of colours as I am with the others on my palette so this was also a nice exercise for me.

That scene keeps calling out to me, so I expect to paint more gates - with different colour schemes, maybe also a charcoal drawing and certainly with some variations compared to the first sketch I made.

More information about this watercolour (size, colours used, etc.) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

2 comments:

  1. That kind of gate, sometimes it belongs to small graveyards.

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  2. Thank you for you reply! We looked through the gate and there was no graveyard, just a lot of weeds. We think there once was a building that has been demolished.

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